Joan Greenwood

Joan Mary Waller Greenwood was an English actress born on 4 March 1921 in Chelsea, London. The daughter of portrait artist Sydney Earnshaw Greenwood and his wife Ida, née Waller, she attended St Catherine's School in Bramley before leaving at age 15. Though she initially aspired to become a ballet dancer, she redirected her ambitions toward acting and trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Her distinctively husky voice and slow, deliberate manner of speaking became her most recognizable professional trademark.

After two years in repertory, Greenwood made an early stage appearance in London in a production of The Imaginary Invalid at age 18, a casting choice that drew on her fluency in French. She joined the Oxford Playhouse Repertory Company, where she took on leading roles in productions including School for Scandal, Caesar and Cleopatra, Hamlet, and A Doll's House. Her London stage work during this period included Little Ladyship, Peter Pan, Heartbreak House, and The Women. While performing in the last of these, she was noticed by Leslie Howard, who cast her in The Gentle Sex in 1943. She also worked with Donald Wolfit's theatre company in the years following the Second World War, playing Ophelia in Hamlet among other roles.

Her screen career began in earnest when Sydney Box signed her to a seven-year contract with the Rank Organisation, starting with A Girl in a Million in 1946. A string of British films followed, including The Man Within, The October Man alongside John Mills, and The White Unicorn with Margaret Lockwood, all in 1947. She took the lead in Saraband for Dead Lovers in 1948, opposite Stewart Granger, though the film proved a costly box-office failure. Her fortunes shifted considerably in 1949 with two Ealing comedies that would become regarded as classics of the genre: Whisky Galore, directed by Alexander Mackendrick, in which she received top billing alongside Basil Radford, and Kind Hearts and Coronets, directed by Robert Hamer, in which she played the seductive Sibella opposite Dennis Price and Alec Guinness. A third Ealing film, The Man in the White Suit, again with Mackendrick and Guinness, followed in 1951.

Greenwood continued to work steadily in British cinema through the early 1950s, appearing in Young Wives' Tale in 1951 and playing Gwendolen in a feature film adaptation of The Importance of Being Earnest in 1952, the same year she opened The Grass Is Greener in the West End. She co-starred with Gérard Philipe in the French production Lovers, Happy Lovers! in 1954 and appeared alongside Guinness for a third time in Father Brown that same year. In Hollywood, she took the female lead in Moonfleet at MGM in 1955, replacing Merle Oberon in the role.

Greenwood made her Broadway debut in 1954, appearing in The Confidential Clerk, a play by T.S. Eliot, which had a short run on Broadway. She returned to Broadway in 1966 in Those That Play the Clowns, also a limited engagement. Her Broadway career thus spanned from 1954 to 1966, with both productions originating from London, where she remained primarily based throughout her career.

Her later film work included a supporting role in Stage Struck in 1958, an appearance in Mysterious Island in 1961, and a notable part in Tom Jones in 1963, for which she received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She also appeared in The Moon-Spinners in 1964. On stage in London, she played Olga opposite Spike Milligan in Frank Dunlop's production of Oblomov, which opened at the Lyric Theatre on 6 October 1964. In 1968, she dubbed the voice of The Black Queen in Barbarella, replacing the voice of actress Anita Pallenberg.

Her personal life included a marriage to actor André Morell, whom she met in 1960 while playing the title role in a production of Hedda Gabler at the Oxford Playhouse, where Morell appeared opposite her as Judge Brack. The two married in Jamaica and remained together until his death in 1978. Their son, Jason Morell, became an actor, writer, and director.

Greenwood continued working into the 1980s, taking on roles in television productions including Bognor in 1981 and Ellis Island in 1985, and appearing in the British sitcom Girls on Top from 1985 to 1986, in which she played Lady Carlton, a romance novelist and landlady. She stepped into the stage production The Understanding in 1982 following the death of Dame Celia Johnson. Her final film, Little Dorrit, was released posthumously in 1988, as was her final television series, Melba. She appeared in a stage sketch with Robert Morley two weeks before her death. Joan Greenwood died on 28 February 1987 at her home in London from acute bronchitis and asthma, nine days before what would have been her 66th birthday.